CTE ensures a thriving Colorado economy by providing relevant and rigorous
education that is connected, responsive and real.

Signed into law in May 2008, Senate Bill 08-212, also known as “Colorado’s
Achievement Plan for Kids” or CAP4K, was a landmark education reform initiative
that created for the first time in Colorado a truly aligned preschool to
postsecondary educational system.

In addition to requiring a review process of the academic standards, Senate
Bill 08-212 also called for the State Board of Education to "take into account
any Career & Technical Education standards adopted by the State Board for
Community Colleges and Occupational Education, created in Section 23-60-104,
C.R.S., and, to the extent practicable, shall align the appropriate portions of
the preschool through elementary and secondary Education standards with the
Career and Technical standards."

Through this process, the updated comprehensive occupational standards and
competencies by CTE content area (Agriculture, Natural Resources & Energy;
Business & Marketing; Family and Consumer Sciences; Health; STEM, Arts & IT;
Trades and Industry; and Alternative Cooperative Education-ACE) have been
aligned and verified with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for
Mathematics; and Reading, Writing and Communication. Additionally, all CTE
content areas were aligned where appropriate to Colorado standards for Science;
Social Studies; Health and Physical Education; Postsecondary & Workforce
Readiness; Music; Visual Arts, Theatre, Dance and World Languages.

Colorado CTE has created a standards site that houses all of the current CTE
standards for each content area. To browse the standards by content area, please
go to http://coctestandards.cccs.edu/. Instructions for navigating the site can
be downloaded
here.

For more information, contact
Scott Stump, Dean of Career & Technical
Education 303-595-1578.